Bridge

When a path was of great use, stone bridges were constructed in the difficult passages (mainly river crossings), in order to ensure the smooth passage of pedestrians and animals. These stone bridges, single-arched or multi-arched, are complex constructions that require special know-how to be robust. Many of them still stand proudly today, above rivers and gorges. The imposing single-arched and multi-arched stone bridges of Aspropotamos, architectural units of great importance and difficult for their time, cause our admiration and curiosity even today.

Ordinary people, who always stand in awe in front of every large structure, could not accept that some alikes could build these bridges without the help of a higher power. A force that had to be appeased, sacrificing something valuable in its honor. That is why folk fiction requires human sacrifice in their foundation. But the old bridges, the proud and arched ones, where beloved wifes of master-builders were sacrificed during their foundation for the sake of the people who crossed them and in the name of progress, peaceful communication and cooperation, played a serious role in recent Greek national history as well.

They unimaginably helped the defense of the revolutionaries during the Ottoman occupation but also the Greek army, later, in its liberation wars. They were important factors in its victory and triumph. Bridges have always been a promise of life. When a bridge was torn down, an invisible wall was erected, the wall of isolation, the wall of death. The bridges symbolize the triumph of the toil, ingenuity and imagination of the anonymous folk builder. (Sotiris Ap. Gorgogetas, The Stone Bridges of the Aspropotamos Area, 2007).